HD Premiere: American Horror Story: Freak Show

The gang’s all here for the extra-long season four premiere: contrary conjoined twins, a killer clown that would give Modern Family’s Frisbo nightmares and Lobster Boy, “who uses his elongated digits to pleasure local females — and not by making hand shadow puppets”. Most of the cast from the previous three seasons of this gleefully freaky horror anthology return for this 1950s reunion set in small-town Florida where a killing spree breaks out after carnival folk pitch their tents. Expect this big-top terror romp to be as over-the-top as its predecessors, although Time says “its palette is more luscious and vibrant than past AHS seasons; the animated opening credits–sprightly deformed skeletons capering about–are ghastly and terrific. The show has a vintage-collector’s delight in the details of this specific brand of horror.” Entertainment Weekly reckons Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, faced with trying to compete with the game-changing nature of their debut season, “wisely seem content to once more shuffle their deck of cards in a manner that exploits our increasing awareness of and fondness for the assorted kings, knaves, and, in particular, queens it contains.” The good news for fans of the original is Freak Show “signals a return to the darkly shaded period melodrama of Asylum, rather than the campier and largely contemporary Coven,” Variety argues. “While that could be seen as a risk — considering Coven garnered the show’s highest ratings and most Emmy wins to date — Horror Story has always thrived on taking chances.” But The Hollywood Reporter thought the opening episodes “insufficiently lurid — slow-paced and obvious” while The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the writing “frighteningly bad“.